Swords and Daggers of the Scytho-Sarmatian Period: Finds from Southwestern Foothills of the Southern Ural (Development of the Territory and Dispersal of the Nomadic Population Revisited)

The article analyzes 15 swords and daggers of the Sarmatian era discovered beyond burial complexes in western steppe-foothill areas of the Southern Urals, in direct vicinity of the taiga mining belt (Russia, Republic of Bashkortostan, Meleuzovsky and Kugarchinsky Districts). The maximum dimensions of the territory are 30 × 20 km.
Among the latter, 5 finds are dated to the 5th–4th cc. BC (including Chertomlyk and Solokha that rare enough for the Southern Urals), 7 finds dated to the 3rd–2nd cc. BC (‘classical’ Prokhorovo samples), and 3 finds dated to the 2nd–1st cc. BC – 1st c. AD (Middle Sarmatian era). Most of the swords and daggers were discovered in the 1960-90s with their finding locations basically identified clearly enough, which allows for a spatial analysis.
The paper shows that all findings are distributed between separate territorial groups (Yumaguzino, Nugush, Itkuchukovo, Verkhotor) which are isolated valleys separated by mountains and 350 m high inland plateaus. Dimensions of such valleys vary from 7×7 to 15×7 km, the distance between them exceeding no 5-10 km. The mountains around the Nugush and Verkhotor Valleys are covered with forest, the Itkuchukovo and Yumaguzino Valleys are characterized by steppe landscape. On one side they border on the mountain-forest zone. The fact that the aforementioned daggers related to both the mid-1st millennium BC and the mid-to-late – late 1st millennium BC were found in the same valleys makes it possible to conclude that nomadic tribes of Scytho-Sarmatian origins had inhabited these territories using them as summer pastures for quite a long time. This suggestion can be well supported by the ethnographic data concerning sizes and locations of ‘nomadic districts’ (as well as summer pasture complexes) of the Bashkir population in the Southern Urals.
The results of the research conducted show that the examined southwestern sub-mountain zone was the farthest northeastern point within the distribution area of Southern Uralic nomadic groups. The lands were actively reclaimed during the last centuries BC, and a number of valleys were used for at least 400–500 years.
Further research and systematization of the collected materials will create opportunities to obtain some data concerning military ‘blade-related’ cults and rituals of the early Eurasian nomadic tribes, and shall provide certain information for reconstruction of the nomadic settlement system in the Southern Urals. The received results can also be helpful in interpolating them on other nomadic territories.

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